Thursday 1 March 2018

"Shocking defending!"

"Shocking defending!" was one of Alan Hansen's most frequent comments when he was a Match of the Day pundit. I know I've been rather preoccupied with defensive failings lately, but Alan must be apoplectic.

I've been ranting about "too much football" being played in one's own half. Last week Chelsea threw away a win against Barcelona in the Champions League when their young centre back, Andreas Christensen, passed the ball across the face of his own penalty area with his team winning 1-0 in the 88th minute - straight to Andres Iniesta. About 3 seconds later Barcelona had equalised. "I had done all the hard work and keept the ball in play but then I made a very bad decision, I should have kicked it out" Christensen said later in an interview. (Er, why work so hard to keep it, just to kick it out you daft lump?). "I know I made a mistake but there is not much more to do than learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again".

Now Christensen is only 21 and has only appeared twenty odd times for Chelsea's first team. But he has he has been with Chelsea since he was 15, has 14 caps for Denmark (and forty odd appearances for Danish age group teams) and played over 60 times for Borussia Monchengladbach in the Bundesliga while on loan from Chelsea. Before all that he must have played junior football for several years in Denmark. So how many coaches has he worked with in the last decade? It is beyond belief that he has not heard that well known saying "not across your own box" on quite a few occasions. So I'm not terribly confident that he will learn.

Not only that, he didn't need to kick it out. As he had time to look up and play the ball infield almost square (a pass banned at Liverpool when they were in their 70s pomp because of its risk) then he had time to look for a player upfield, preferably "up the line", the phrase used to describe a pass straight up the pitch when you are towards the touchline. As a teenage winger I knew that, if under pressure in my own half, the touchline was my friend - dummy inside then turn away and you either got past your man or won a throw in or, at worst conceded one. Of course, you should be trying to retain possession, not just hoofing it away. But retaining possession and running down the clock by winning a throw in makes a lot more sense when winning in the 88th minute than any kind of cross field pass.

I don't know whether Christensen doesn't know this, or just won't learn it or whether all of his many coaches don't know it, but what he did is not good football.

After that incompetence we had the nonsense of the Carabao aka League Cup Final. It's been the risks taken by the otherwise hugely impressive Manchester City that have caused me to write about football recently but, ironically, it was City who were gifted their crucial first goal against Arsenal at the weekend. Of course, Arsenal have not been a good defensive side for many years now. Indeed, one does wonder whether, without the famous back four of Dixon, Adams, Bould and Winterburn in front of Seaman in goal who were all place (and had been for several years) when Wenger took over in 1996, he would have ever had as much success as he did. Though to be fair the 2004 "Invincibles" had a solid defence including Sol Campbell and Martin Keown and with Patrick Vieira (still referred to mischievously by Mrs H by his dressing room nicknames of "Le Long" or "Le Grand Saucisse" - the giant sausage) in front of them. Whatever, Skhodran Mustafi's schoolboy error in not being goalside of his man turned the match.

Now the concept of being goalside of your man is drummed into defenders when they are too young to tie their own bootlaces: I well remember doing both of those things coaching ten year olds. By the time I was 25 if I was caught standing upfield of the opposing centre forward, who I was meant to be marking, before the opposition restarted play with a goal kick as City were about to do, then several of my team mates would give me earache. If you were daft enough to reply "but the keeper is still fetching the ball" (no ball boys in the Warrington and District League!) you would be put right in short order. "Get behind him NOW while it's easy". Indeed I gave the same advice to other players myself on many occasions - usually with, er, an extra word for emphasis. Mustafi may have thought Aguero, being behind him, was offside. But at least one of Arsenal's other two centre backs, certainly Koscielny on his left, was playing Aguero on. So the error wasn't just Mustafi's as either of his back three colleagues could have looked across (actually I think Koscielny did) and said "get goalside you banana". Or moved up. But maybe Mustafi just thought, why bother, it's only Sergio Aguero...

While we all expected Arsene Wenger to claim that Aguero, holding his ground as Mustafi struggled to get back when City's ball playing keeper whacked the goal kick straight along route one, fouled Mustafi, everyone who has seen it, apart from Jack Wilshere who really should know better, knows it wasn't a foul. Mustafi just backed into Aguero as he held his shoulder firm, giving Mustafi the gentlest of well-timed nudges. Mustafi himself didn't seem to believe his appeal and Aguero did what he does, aided by the Arsenal keeper being in no man's land otherwise known these days as keeper-sweeper position.

These oh so simple lapses are doubly culpable when playing three centre backs because, counter-intuitively perhaps, that system means the centre backs are further apart than in a traditional back four, so the guy in the middle is quite isolated: one of the reasons I'm not terribly keen on the formation.

On the same day we saw Spurs get a last gasp winner at Palace from a corner when Harry Kane headed in from close range from a corner. Three Palace defenders were in the vicinity but all of them were looking for the man not the ball. If any of them had made a decent challenge for it Kane would probably not have scored. Kane is admirable and some are saying he is England's only world class player.  I think that is unproven given the current standard of defending in the Premier League, though he is doing well in the Champions League. We'll see whether he is top international class at the World Cup. At least this time he shouldn't be taking the corners.

In the same game Tottenham's Serge Aurier took three foul throws. I have only ever seen the like of this when involved with boys' football - and very young boys at that. It never happened in my boys' team as they knew even two would mean a lengthy session on throw ins at Tuesday evening's training session. They hated doing it, so of course we did it until they got it right. Mauricio Pochettino apparently asked Aurier if he was trying to get him sacked. Personally I would have gone for the Alex Ferguson hair dryer approach rather than humour. And if I had been the Spurs captain on the day I wouldn't have let him take the third throw.

The Match of the Day pundits seemed to find Aurier's sloppiness funny. As you can tell I'm getting thoroughly grumpy watching people who earn the equivalent of a very good professional person's salary in a week being, well, not remotely professional. It may sometimes mean there are more goals but it doesn't make the game better to watch, for me anyway.

After all, if I wanted to watch schoolboy standard football I'd go back to coaching boys.

2 comments:

  1. 'These oh so simple lapses are doubly culpable when playing three centre backs because, counter-intuitively perhaps, that system means the centre backs are further apart'....

    Three Centre backs you know will fail - Johnson, Davis and Fox:-)

    Sorry Phil this daft line up of over the hill centre backs just jumped into my mind for some odd reason.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've got me there mate: I think not Mansfield Town?

      Delete